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00:00When you join a sacred image to excrement, everybody understands that that is taken to
00:14be insulting.
00:15Art often provokes, depending on how you feel about what you're looking at.
00:20It says more about you than about me.
00:22Hi, I'm Brooke Andrew.
00:33I hail from Wiradjuri and Ngunnawal peoples who have inspired and nurtured me on my life
00:39journey.
00:40I'm an artist, and I've had the honour of exhibiting my work, collaborating with Indigenous and
00:44other communities, and curating on a global stage, from Colombia, France, Japan, to the
00:50Sharjah and Sydney Biennales.
00:53As an artist, I dig deep to reflect on how we exist in the world and confront painful truths.
00:59This journey often leads into sensitive and sometimes challenging places of taboo.
01:07When I was a younger artist in the 90s, I was very passionate about the visibility of us,
01:15you know, about Indigenous culture.
01:20So I made a work called Sexy and Dangerous, and then at one point it became almost taboo.
01:25Like, you know, do I have a right to show this photo or not?
01:29I currently don't use ethnographic imagery anymore in my work.
01:33I feel that I've dealt with this.
01:35Throughout my work, I've witnessed how subjects deemed taboo can trigger intense emotions that
01:40extend far beyond the world of art.
01:44Over like a 30-year span of someone's career, histories change, or politics and religion changes,
01:50or, you know, society changes, and so there's always a context around taboo.
01:55And I think one of the most challenging things about an artist that works from a very personal
02:00viewpoint of wanting to know more is that once you expose yourself publicly, that thing
02:07has its own life, and you cannot be in charge of it.
02:11I've been long aware of the nature and power of taboo ideas.
02:15So much so that in 2012, I curated an exhibition called Taboo at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.
02:26When we were doing the catalogue, there's a very early British watercolour that showed
02:34a gollywog getting married to, you know, a pretty white girl with curls, and she's crying
02:40and crying, yet I couldn't put it on the front cover without it being concealed somehow.
02:47So we concealed it with a plastic wrapping.
02:50But you can take the cover off.
02:52So there's this thing where, you know, if you want to, you can reveal it yourself or
02:57not reveal it yourself.
02:59There's still so much I want to understand about how we interpret and live taboos.
03:04How do we talk to each other about sensitive subjects without drawing battle lines?
03:09Or is this always inevitable?
03:11And how can artists protect themselves and each other in a polarised world where their livelihoods
03:17are under threat from moral crusades or just basic differences?
03:21I want to know who is in charge of taboo, because I think that often we're just making
03:29our work.
03:30All of a sudden we're placed in something and all the spotlight is on us and we think,
03:34whoa, hang on a minute, how did I get here?
03:37I want to start my journey by talking to an artist who found themselves in the eye of
03:42a taboo storm and who stands their own ground of this tale.
03:46In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
03:53It's blasphemous, it's insulting.
03:56Two staff have already been injured in this incident.
03:58I'm not going to put their lives at risk.
04:01Peace Christ is a monumental and provocative photograph of Jesus on the crucifix, immersed
04:07in the artist's own urine.
04:08Though the work was already a decade old, Cardinal George Pell sought to ban it from Australian
04:14audiences, denouncing the artist as blasphemous.
04:17His injunction failed, but the surrounding media storm incited two teenagers to vandalise
04:23the piece with a hammer.
04:26After three days of escalating threats and intimidation from some Christian groups, the National Gallery
04:31of Victoria ultimately capitulated and closed the exhibition.
04:35For me, what the children did was foolish, but what the National Gallery has done is irresponsible
04:43and criminal.
04:44André Serrano's work confronts the raw realities of human existence, sex, death, ethnicity,
05:06religion and violence, territories where the notion of taboo is constantly at play.
05:12Through his unwavering commitment to his beliefs and his probing of humanity's complexities,
05:17Serrano has developed a practice that is both prolific and internationally acclaimed.
05:23His New York home is a shrine and houses a vast collection of religious relics and antiquities,
05:29an irony given that his art is often seen as provocative or even antithetical to contemporary
05:35Christian values.
05:36I was born and raised a Christian, but I was born and raised a poor Christian, you know,
05:44and so this came after I made enough money to be able to buy things.
05:4928 years on from this complex cancellation of his work, I'm curious how André's experience
05:55has shaped his thoughts on who's in charge of taboo.
05:58If we could transport ourselves back to 1997 and the National Gallery of Victoria was showing
06:04your really incredible work, Piss Christ, what was it like to experience, dare I say, the
06:10controversy?
06:11The bad part was the show was cancelled.
06:13The good part was everybody in Australia heard about it, you know.
06:16More people heard about it than would have gone to see the show.
06:18So that's the thing where I say sometimes, you've got to take the good with the bad.
06:23I mean, was that something that was really, I mean, disappointing on a personal level that
06:28you hoped that people would kind of maybe expand their minds about why you make this work?
06:33Art often provokes, there's always the new and sometimes the new is unfamiliar enough
06:40to make people feel uncomfortable.
06:43In my case, I've always said my work is open to interpretation.
06:47When you join a sacred image to excrement, everybody understands that that is taken to be insulting.
06:53Well, actually no, because I thought he was saying, this is what we are doing to Christ.
06:58We're not treating him with reverence.
07:01We live very vulgar lives.
07:04We've put Christ in a bottle of urine in practice.
07:08Depending on how you feel about what you're looking at, whether it's a picture of someone
07:12in a morgue or Ku Klux Klan, even Donald Trump.
07:15I took a picture of Donald Trump from my America series.
07:18So depending on how you feel about that subject, that particular person, it says more about you than about me.
07:25Because in my work, I don't judge.
07:28I treat everyone the same and I try to make them all look good.
07:32So who is in charge of taboos then?
07:34I don't know who's in charge of taboo.
07:36I'm not in charge of taboo.
07:39I'm inspired by Andre's perspective and stamina, how he invites us to form our own engagement
07:45with the subjects regardless of where we draw the line.
07:48Even if we think his images are taboo, their real power is in asking how we chose to interpret the world around us.
07:56For some, taboo can be interpreted as cultural or personal freedom against the status quo.
08:03But on the fine margins of someone else's morality, taboo can bring controversy and even disgust.
08:10One famous provocateur knew this all too well.
08:13And in 1785, the controversial Marquis de Sade created 120 Days of Sodom.
08:20The shocking and transgressive novel exploring extreme human cruelty, power and perversion.
08:26But was there method behind the apparent madness of the Marquis?
08:31Who was the Marquis de Sade?
08:33He's alternatively been described as one of the greatest artistic minds that's ever lived.
08:39and one of the most deranged and monstrous human beings.
08:43OK.
08:44He spent 30 plus years of his life imprisoned, was never formally charged for anything
08:49but was essentially put away because he was seen as dangerous under three different governments.
08:53What an achievement.
08:55He wrote some of his works while witnessing the daily executions during the reign of terror.
09:02His prison cell was positioned right above the guillotine.
09:07Can you tell me what taboos does the Marquis explore in 120 Days of Sodom?
09:13Might be an easy question to say what taboos aren't covered in this book, frankly.
09:16The book is set around four men of power that document the various sexual taboos that exist.
09:23We have cannibalism, incest, bodily mutilation, flagellation, scatology and murder.
09:33To this day, this is one of the most censored works of pornographic literature that we have.
09:38What do you think the legacy of 120 Days of Sodom is today?
09:44If people say it's too vile and it's too monstrous, there's an argument to be had there.
09:49At the same time, is this meant to be an allegorical story of how power corrupts?
09:56Pornographers in the 18th century were writing to inspire revolution.
10:00And this is the man who, while in the Bastille prison, yells outside of his window through his piss tube,
10:07saying they're killing the prisoners inside, you must help us,
10:10and literally inspires the storming of the Bastille.
10:13So in every sense, you've got this person who is in the midst of this momentous change,
10:23but again takes it too far at every single moment.
10:27While I don't recommend adding 120 Days of Sodom to your book club,
10:31if we look past the Maquis de Sade's depravity,
10:34maybe we can see the familiar modern figure of a whistleblower,
10:38even if that whistle was a piss tube.
10:43Challenging ignorance and prejudice head-on can put artists on a collision course
10:47that may come across as taboo.
10:49Even though there is reason for doing this,
10:51to deliberately create situations to shock others into their reality.
10:57But for some, ambiguity isn't on the menu.
11:00Sam Peterson is a visual artist, writer and performer.
11:04The Slow Violence Cookbook is a collection of Sam's writings,
11:08interspersed with variations of the same cake recipe repeated over and over.
11:14I hope they're meant to look like this.
11:17Hey Sam!
11:21How are you?
11:23Look!
11:24I made one of your cakes, a peanut butter cake.
11:27But I think it looks like a turd.
11:30Very curious to taste. They weren't all meant to work.
11:33The recipes are all the same cake, but with different flavours to represent the sameness of the constant ableism.
11:44Or the constant turds.
11:46Apocalypse wheelchair is Sam's latest sculpture.
11:55The rigged out chair features a modified disabled logo, loudspeakers, catheter piss guns and a poo shoot.
12:02It's being used in a photo shoot for Sam's upcoming short film.
12:05I could really see you burning up the film set with a new version of, I don't know, Tina Turner's appearance in...
12:14Is it Beyond Thunderdome?
12:18It will be uber political, containing every bit of taboo.
12:23I've done and then some.
12:25I would say wrapped in grossness.
12:27But a lot of what I've written about is pretty bad.
12:31It will have pee, defecation, road kill, ugliness, neglect, loneliness, bullying, infantilization and plain old abuse.
12:42Reflecting treatment I have endured in real world scenarios.
12:47In doing so, hopefully showing the world how horrible it can be.
12:52Sam, is taboo your secret weapon?
12:54Not sure what is secret about it.
12:57But yes, I do use it like a weapon.
13:00Because I have every reason to.
13:03As well as sculpture and performance, Sam recently used collage.
13:07This piece, You Need Us, is a series of ransom letters detailing Sam's demands to an ableist society.
13:15Art is a powerful communication tool.
13:18And how Sam mixes playfulness with genuine anger to force us to respond is an important act of dignity.
13:25The work confronts deep lying taboos about how people with disabilities are viewed.
13:31Because there is this concept that we have to be grateful for everything.
13:36I laugh the hardest in the grimmest points of my life.
13:41Humour is rage.
13:43Humour is shock.
13:45And we like to shock because we are so full of rage.
13:49And when you are driven to the brink lots of times you start to see things.
13:53And it is all too tempting to use them in your work.
13:56So Sam, who is in charge of taboo?
14:00I am.
14:01Because I don't care.
14:06Well, I do a little.
14:09When I come up with a concept, I think, hee hee, great idea.
14:14But then I start to doubt myself.
14:17Because I'm not the only one with disabilities in this world.
14:21And I've been through so much indignity.
14:24That I start to wonder whether I'm doing the right thing.
14:29But inevitably I do the taboo because I know it's the only way forward.
14:36And it feels so powerful to take it back.
14:41Okay, are we all dying to have a piece of this cake?
14:53Oh my.
14:55It's a little soft inside.
14:58Okay, here we go.
15:00Who wants to try some turd?
15:02Do you think that's what taboo tastes like?
15:11An aspect.
15:13Watching Sam take charge of taboo so powerfully is compelling and important.
15:21Another artist who understands the delicate balance of sharing personal stories
15:26is Australia's representative at the 2026 Venice Biennale.
15:31Hey, brother.
15:32Hey, bro.
15:33My dear friend, Khaled Zabsabe, whose work I included in the curated exhibition,
15:38Taboo, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in 2012.
15:43Welcome, Brooke. Come in.
15:45We might have a look at content from the archive.
15:49I'm curious to get Khaled's understanding of what taboo means to him.
15:53Especially in the context of a global view of migration,
15:56spiritual growth and freedom of speech.
15:59No way. This is from Taboo.
16:02In 2012, he contributed a bird of peace to a work called Vitrines,
16:08which collected various mementos from artists,
16:11along with photographs of war, genocide and conflict.
16:14Look at that.
16:15I'm trying to be happy.
16:16Yeah, I was really happy.
16:18Peace founder.
16:19I'm still happy, bro.
16:20His family emigrated to Australia in the 1970s, fleeing the civil war in Lebanon.
16:29I remember being in the boot of a car, and then nothing after that, and then just waking up at a border.
16:36Khaled Zabsabe's remarkable life journey deeply informs his art.
16:41Guided by a commitment to social justice, his immersive installations delve into themes of displacement and belonging,
16:48the persistence of hope, and the spiritual dimensions of mysticism and Sufism.
16:54Music and sound is so important to me.
16:57Sort of multi-sensory experience.
17:01Khaled Zabsabe's artistic journey began in the 1990s, when he was working as a youth worker and became immersed in Sydney's hip-hop scene.
17:10It was here that he discovered his voice, blending his commitment to activism with his passion for creative expression.
17:17You talk about peace and you talk about collaboration.
17:21How is Tabu tied up in that for you?
17:24Through my memories of childhood, yes, there was memory of war and trauma.
17:31But there was also moments of religious, spiritual ceremonies.
17:38Khaled's art is an invitation to step into the delicate terrain of ideas, often left unspoken, even taboo.
17:46Yet here, they become spaces for dialogue and reflection.
17:50Rooted in the Sufi path, his work reaches towards the divine through the languages of love, learning and devotion,
17:58offering a journey that is at once personal and universal.
18:02We're going to speak about to solve Sufism, then we have to open the discussion.
18:14And the only way you can actually open a discussion is to cleanse.
18:21Give me your right hand, turn it over.
18:36Now we can talk about Sufism and to solve.
18:40The idea of a guide and a teacher into solve is so critical to the point of what is Tabu.
18:54With Tabu comes knowledge.
18:57You are a custodian of knowledge.
19:00But when you are a custodian of knowledge, there comes responsibility and accountability.
19:13How much of that knowledge do you share?
19:15And with whom are you sharing it with?
19:19Is there a way in which that you thought people might receive your work and there's been a difference in which it has been received?
19:30I don't particularly make work for one type of audience.
19:36It does ask questions, which relates back to the idea of Tabu.
19:42Because there's some things that you say, well, that's shame or that's like makruh or haram, which are two Arabic words, which means forbidden.
19:52To make work is about broadening conversations, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of faith, regardless of gender.
20:08And part of making artwork is part of a healing process for me.
20:13So Khaled, who is in control of Tabu?
20:17The person that holds the knowledge, that's who I feel is in control of Tabu.
20:28Cut.
20:30Conversations with Khaled remind me that engaging with Tabus always carries risk, both for the subjects and for the artists themselves.
20:39It also raises questions I'm often asked.
20:42What is it that artists seek from their audiences when we confront the Tabu?
20:47All opposing sides, they're all part of the same thing.
20:51We're all part of this planet.
20:53And if you think about what they say about the universal mind, we're even more connected than we know.
20:59I was one of 200 artists and creators and writers who were invited to the Vatican to hear Pope Francis speak.
21:08And when I went up to the Pope, and I said to him, Your Holiness, my name is Andre Serrano, and I've come here to ask for your blessing.
21:17And the Pope smiled, he took my hand, he tapped it twice, and then he went like that.
21:23And afterwards, the press said to me, you're the only one he gave a thumbs up to.
21:28I got what I always wanted from Pope Francis, not only an acknowledgement that I was an artist, that I'm a Christian, but also a thumbs up.
21:40And this is what we need, right, as artists.
21:42I mean, even when things get tough, we need to know that people that we respect are respecting us back.
21:48I think even when you're on opposing sides, you know, because I feel like things are very polarized right now.
21:56There's that group and that group, and they hate each other.
21:59And you need to come to terms with speaking to each other without hate.
22:05The need for respect and understanding is something I think about constantly when creating work with sensitive material.
22:19So this is called Vox Beyond Tasmania.
22:22And it was really a way to resonate the human remains, trade and the scientific racism that happened during those periods of colonialism in Australia specifically.
22:34This voxel, this voice, you know, is really an kind of opportunity for these skeletons, these ancestors to speak back to us today.
22:43So it has books, it has research, but it also has originally a human remain, like a skeleton.
22:50But recently I decided that scanning it and doing a replica in plastic was the most kind of honourable thing to do, especially that internationally and within Australia,
23:00there's a huge movement of repatriation of human remains.
23:05To confront taboos is to step into uneasy territory when no answer is ever clear.
23:10For artists, the challenge is urgent.
23:12When does the pursuit of truth cross into exploitation or misunderstanding?
23:17Like I even had people from Tasmania saying, is that a Tasmanian Aboriginal skull?
23:21So the Aboriginal community from there ringing me up thinking that I'd done that.
23:25Yeah, there's a lot to consider.
23:27Today, it can sometimes seem that engaging with taboos only fuels ongoing cultural wars,
23:33where delicate and meaningful ideas are too easily dismissed or reduced to offences.
23:39This makes me wonder, how did taboo come to stand as shorthand for conflict, rather than understanding?
23:47To explore this, I turned to Siona Nappefrancis, a collections manager at Melbourne Museum,
23:53whose insights can help trace the deeper origins of taboo.
23:57So Siona, where does the word taboo come from?
24:00The word was originally popularised by Captain Cook in 1777.
24:05He came to Tongatapu, which is the main island of the Tonga group,
24:09and it became to mean something very different to the original word, which is taboo.
24:16Taboo is a relational word.
24:19It's about the sacredness of people and places and your relationship to it.
24:25Very important to mention the word tulou.
24:28Tulou is a word of respect.
24:32So, for example, a local First Nations elder, if I was going to walk past them, I would say tulou,
24:40to show that that person has tapu within them, and it is something that you need to respect.
24:47So reflecting on the artists we've been speaking with and meeting, taboo seems to be about power.
24:53Yes, it's more about having difficult conversations about the context that you're in.
24:59For example, acknowledgement of country, it's a way of balancing that power dynamic
25:05and creating space for a real dialogue around difficult questions.
25:12OK, if tapu is a way of protecting rather than persecuting,
25:16then maybe taking control of taboo means bringing togetherness rather than division.
25:24When embraced in this way, can tapu be understood not as a barrier, but as a healing force,
25:30one that restores balance and honest connection.
25:33To continue this journey, I turn to an artist whose work is deeply rooted in her cultural traditions,
25:39carrying forward the living meaning of tapu.
25:43South Pacific Prince Kingdom of Tonga.
25:46Where is this from?
25:47This is from Tonga. It was my mum's.
25:49This is where the word taboo...
25:54Oh, OK. The way in which tapu is used today internationally, how does it feel?
26:00The word taboo is very limited in the way that it can just mean something is really forbidden.
26:07But for tapu, this describes how one would sanctify a space as well.
26:14Maybe bringing community.
26:15Exactly. Communities understand when something has been sanctified as sacred,
26:21it determines how they behave with each other and with the space that they're in.
26:25So there's like an understanding in a way.
26:27Totally. And it keeps them safe.
26:31Latai Tomopia is a Tongan Punaka and multidisciplinary artist whose practice is grounded in fa-fa.
26:39A body-centred tradition that weaves together ritual, protest and ceremony.
26:44She addresses climate justice, ancestral memory and Pacific sovereignty.
26:49What does taboo or tapu mean to you?
26:52You know, as an artist and as a woman who works with performance and with my body,
26:57I have to take some of those risks.
27:00So risks are not always only dangerous risks, but social risks.
27:05And I think when you work with culture, I think you have to understand that you are making that kind of commitment.
27:15Latai's works are complex physical compositions that allow or even require an audience to participate.
27:22And today I get to see Latai's latest performance in person.
27:27Usually I've done endurance performance work, but this time it's a 15-minute choreographed score.
27:34I work with young people and they learn it, they rehearse it very quickly and then they perform it.
27:39Through the motion of rowing machines, high school students activate voices recorded in Latai's Tongan village.
27:46This participatory work immerses audiences in rhythms of tradition,
27:51evoking ancestral ties and a living connection with the ocean.
27:56Central to this work is an ancient prayer or a Himalotu.
28:01I wanted to use that as a way of continuing a communion with the deep sea sediment.
28:09Experiencing the work feels almost hypnotic.
28:12I am not only transported, but also enveloped in a sense of tapu for the ocean and connection to ancestors.
28:21Sacred realms, precious and fragile, under threat from forces of climate change.
28:26This work is looking at all kinds of different ways of exploring the sacred
28:31and also as a way into our custodialship of the ocean and our work to defend it.
28:37The deep sea is a very sacred space, it's where we began.
28:42And so that sense of communion is something that I wanted people to experience.
28:50What I admire most about Latai's work is how it comes alive through participation.
28:55It calls us to rise, to engage and through the transformative power of tapu
29:00to protect the fragile world we share.
29:02And if that isn't reclaiming the meaning of tapu, I'm not sure what is.
29:10It is serious reflection on history, identity and alternative views that continues to drive my work.
29:16And sharing time with the extraordinary and brave artists I've encountered on this journey
29:21has only deepened that sense of respect and revealing truths
29:25that are sometimes difficult to reconcile and heal.
29:27Taboos often signal areas of sensitivity and respect, but they need not stand as roadblocks in life.
29:35If we approach them with courage, imagination, care and a willingness to listen,
29:41taboos can become guides, opening pathways to new ideas and new worlds through art and beyond.
29:47And beyond.
29:48And beyond.
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